cover image What Comes After

What Comes After

Katie Bayerl. Penguin/Paulsen, $19.99 (416p) ISBN 978-0-399-54528-3

Sixteen-year-old Mari Novak is dead. She’s not sure how that happened, but to her horror, her estranged mother—who died six weeks ago—is beside her as she regains awareness. They and countless others linger in Paradise Gate, a place for religiously unaffiliated souls to work through intense 90-day self-help regimens so that they may ascend to the Ever After. Mari has long been the adult in her relationship with her erratic mother, and the embittered teen yet again becomes caretaker, attending ridiculous Youga classes (“I’m sure real yogis would be horrified by this”) and therapy sessions to accumulate points toward redemption. When the circumstances of Mari’s death are made public, bizarrely casting her as a hero, she becomes an unwilling “true soul model” to inspire others; her desperate search for answers about her death and the truths of this so-called paradise take her into the realm’s rebellious underbelly. This innovative and existential novel by Bayerl (A Psalm for Lost Girls)—reminiscent of The Good Place—offers raw, realistic insights into Mari and her mother’s troubled relationship. Mari and her mother are white. Ages 12–up. Agent: Erin Harris, Folio Literary. (Apr.)